I woke this morning to the thermometer at 0 degrees, two men threatening to destroy the world with buttons on their desks, news of a friend’s father near death, and the laments of people who feel unheard and demeaned waiting to be addressed in my in box. It’s a heavy start to to 2018.

I can’t make it warmer, and I can’t get rid of the nuclear arsenal, much as I’ve tried. I can’t heal my friend’s father, and I can’t end sexism, racism and homophobia, but I’ll keep trying. What I can do though is answer the calling that lifts my life; I can write.

Yesterday, my friend Tom and I were talking about how much we want to write, how much we simply need to (and want to) give our best energy to our words, how we know this is what we are asked to do in this world, and how our best work of justice and healing and activism comes through our writing. (It’s good to have a friend to remind you of that truth.)

So friends, here in this new year that already seems so hard and broken, may you be encouraged that while we need to speak truth and seek justice, while we need to help our neighbors and listen to those who are hurting, our primary work in this world is to write the truth of what we see – be that the hope of joy in a novel about a parakeet and her person or in a serious work of nonfiction about the school to prison pipeline, be that the wild escape of a fantasy epic or the beautiful illustrations of a picture book. Our work is to write about the world and for the world. We have to trust that this work is about healing and justice and, most of all, hope.

Write, beautiful people. Write. We need you to do your part of healing us all, one word at a time.

Each summer, I have the absolute privilege of spending three days doing three of the things I love the most: talking about writing, spending time with writers, and sharing the great gift that is our farm. At our annual Writer’s Retreat, writers from all over the U.S. gather to get to know one another, talk about writing, and learn from some of the best writers in the world today.

At the retreat we do a workshop, have casual discussions about various aspects of the writing craft, share home-cooked meals, and relax together around the farm. The animals will be around to greet you, and we’ll share a bonfire or two if the weather is amenable. It’s a relaxed and, hopefully, relaxing time to talk about writing with other people who get it.

My book Discover Your Writing Self* is a set of 31 casual lessons that are designed to help you think through everything from when you write to why you write.

To enter simply complete one or more of the tasks in the RaffleCopter giveaway below. Then next Tuesday, a winner will be chosen, and I’ll announce the winner here as well as contact her/him about how to receive their prize.

When I slow down, my adamance falls away. So I don’t have any strident affirmations or deep tips for you in this final week of 2016. No pronouncements or prognostications here. But I do have a few questions for you, questions that I hope will help you, as they are helping me, think about who I want to be and how writing is a part of that.

Will you claim writer as part of who you are AND also remember it is it now all of who you are?

Will you put your energy into the part of the writing life that you can control – the doing the work, the writing the best thing, the sharing it with the people who you hope need and want to read it?

Will you put aside the striving, the counting, the protecting? Will you set aside the belief that your success or failure as a writer (good glory, and as a human?!) are tied to what other people say or do, what they buy or don’t buy?

Will you seek what gives you joy in your writing life? Write the things that make you come alive? Toss away the words or expectations or market goals that weigh you down?

Will you treasure the kind words – print them up, make art with them, slide them into a file you keep on your desktop – people say about your work and let the ugly ones disappear into the dark without tying yourself to them and without denying they buoy or hurt?

Will you, in short, write the best things you can and let all the rest go?

Share your answers in the comments below if you want or treasure them in your journal or in that shiny pocket of your heart where truth dances.

May your 2017 start with hope for your words, with commitment to your work, with joy for the journey. May you remember, even on the hard days, that all you are asked to do is the best that you can with the gifts and desires you are given.

Happy New Year, beautiful people.

**

Just a few more days to join us in the Discover Your Writing Self. It’s FREE and designed entirely to help you explore yourself as a writer. No shaming or shoulding. No rules or guilt. Just questions and stories to help you find your way through.

In just six weeks, July 29-31, our farm in Virginia is going to be delightfully overrun with writers, and I cannot wait. This year will be my third for hosting the annual writer’s retreat at God’s Whisper Farm, and each year, I am all filled up and the perfect kind of exhausted at the end.

I’m not sure language will suffice to express what happens any time writers get together with the intention of focusing on our words and our nourishment as creative people, but I can tell you it’s magical, restful, and sustaining, at least for me. Maybe it’s so special because so much of what we do is solitary, because writing – in practice – requires us to be alone to be our best writing selves.

So when those first cars come down our farm lane, I feel a jolt of hope I hadn’t known I needed. “Here are my people,” I want to shout. . . maybe this time I’ll actually bellow that as each person arrives.

If you haven’t heard about the retreat yet, let me tell you a bit about it:

First, our ultimate goals for this time together are that we relax, connect, and learn – in that order.

To that end, we spend time together around the bonfire and share four home-cooked meals.

We have an open mic reading for anyone who wants to participate as well as a small-group workshop.

Great writers teach us about the practice, craft, and business of writing.

And our animals and the gorgeous gift of this place fill our spirits, inspire us, bring us rest.

At least that’s our hope. Kelly Chripczuk, Shawn Smucker, and I are eager to share a weekend with you, to settle into the quiet of this rural space, and to hear your words as they spring forth and bloom.

This morning, as the sun lifted herself above the treeline east of the farm, I bent and cut oregano from the pot by the front steps. The fragrance lifted to my fingers and then my nose, a little licorice, a bit tangy, pungent, rich, like dinner in Tuscany on a summer’s night.

I slid each sprig into cold water held together by a mason jar and tucked the vessel into the cup holder of the Subaru, the transport of precious gifts each morning. My modern mule going to market. “Free Oregano. Help Yourself.”

**

Yesterday, I was talking to a member of the Painted Steps Writers’ Group. We were discussing how difficult it is for us to get out of our heads when we write, especially since we were both trained as academic writers. He said that as he writes more and more, he finds himself better able to access the voice that remembers his story as it was lived, better able to push past the analytic voice that wants to abstract and sketch rather than dwell and describe.

I call that voice, the one that speaks from the fullness of the experience, the heart voice. The heart voice comes from somewhere deep inside our chests, the place where the truest version of ourselves lives. This voice speaks the full truth, sometimes the truth that we didn’t even know we knew.

Often, as writers, we think a lot. We try to figure out our plots or find the full stories of our characters. We write outlines and research every detail. Those are important, necessary steps. But I firmly believe that none of those things will live, none of them will fill up the page will the richness that is life unless we let all of that mind work settle into our hearts and become part of the story we know at the core of ourselves.

As people, we also feel a lot. Our emotions well up powerfully, and we are swayed by them, as we should be at times. In writing, these emotions can push our stories certain directions, and sometimes, the direction of our tales becomes the direction of our pain. Again, our stories may need to lean into our suffering, and suffering certainly shapes story. But our best stories are not just driven by emotion; they rise out of the fullness of who we are.

In our core, we are not just thoughts, and we are not just emotions. We are not even a combination of those two things. We are human – and humanness is rich and various and veined with a silver thread of something that goes beyond the ability of words to explain. When we write – and live – from our fullness, we are dipping our pens into that vein of silver and letting it flow over our words and our days.

When we draw from our heart’s well, our minds, our emotions, and this mystical shimmer coalesce into words that call to the hearts of the people who read them.

Here are a few things I do to help me hear the voice of my heart, even when my brain is firing fast or my emotions threaten to push me toward a plate full of microwave s’mores:

I find a quiet place. For me, this means, I sit in a place where I cannot see what else needs to be done, where I am not reminded of hard emails or tough memories. Most of the time, I find this place in my office. I can clear away my to-do list, shut down extra tabs on my browser, and stare out over the garden to see a purple martin preening on the power line.

I breathe deeply. One of the best things I have learned in the practice of yoga is the way my breath mimics how my life is at that moment. So when I want to write deep – and really, I hope I want to write that way always – I sit up straight, drop my shoulders, and take 10 deep breaths. I feel my rib cage open up (sometimes, it even cracks as the tension goes.) My shoulders ease off their rabid tightness. My feet sink into the floor.

I write with a pen and paper. On the days when I am having the hardest time writing true, I follow my usual writing ritual, but then, I write hard, fast, and long with a pen to paper. I don’t think. I don’t censor. I don’t try to control. I just write. Natalie Goldberg talks about that method in many of her books, and it’s one of the best I know.

I listen. Now that my mind is still and my emotional turmoil quelled, I sit and just listen (Kelly Chripczuk reminded me of the importance of listening just the other day) – often with my eyes closed – to what rises from my center. Sometimes, I see an image. Sometimes, I hear a sentence. Sometimes, I just know what it is I must say. Then, I write, translating what rises into language.

Much of this mimics my practice of prayer (and if you are looking for a great book about the links between prayer and writing, I highly recommend Ed Cyzewski’s bookPray, Write, Grow). For some of you, it may feel much like your meditation practice.

The key is to let yourself settle – both in mind and heart – so you can hear yourself. Really hear yourself.

**

Our farm stand is an act of courage for me, a bit of trust that this part of our farm dream will be good for us and for the people who visit it. Each morning, as I harvest from our garden and put out the vegetables we have to share, I pray over them – that their goodness will reach just who needs it, even if those people are us.

Writing is the same as is any way of living that takes risk. It takes a wellspring of courage to live wild, to answer the call of our hearts. But I can tell you that from where I sit as a full-time writer on a farm that was a mere vision 5 years ago, it is so worth the risk.

Right now, hat fresh oregano is sitting at the farm stand, hopeful with its green fragrance.

What would you write or do if you listened to your heart’s voice? I’d love to hear.

On August 1, a new session of the Painted Steps Writers Group will begin. 10 spots are available for writers of any level of experience who want or need some community, accountable, and guidance as they draft their next book. Please visit this page for more information, and do let me know if you have any questions. I’d love to have you join me in that safe, wild space.

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Testimonials

The manuscript review Andi provided was thorough, punctual, and a great value. Not only did she find key points for revision, but she provided encouragement, and following the review offered further advice about the writing process. After this last revision I’ve been able to query agents with improved confidence. Thanks, Andi!

Lynn Sikkink

“Andrea helped me revise a lot of my work. She was a great editor who worked patiently with me and really tried to understand what I was trying to communicate. She is a definite hire!”

“Andi was a great help in preparing my resume for distribution. While I greatly appreciate her writing skills, I was worried that she would not have the ‘business’ perspective that I needed. That worry went unfounded and Andi provided both an analytical and literary perspective to the review process that made my resume much stronger.”